Brooke Lockyer is the author of *Burr*, launching this month from Nightwood Editions.
Photo by Arden Wray

Brooke and I go way, way back to our days in the Creative Writing Masters program at the University of Toronto. That was a tough period for me. I struggled constantly with imposter syndrome. On the surface, Brooke might have been the most intimidating of the 7 students in our cohort. Tall, stylish, slightly mysterious, and impossibly cool, she wore statement lipstick and vintage clothing. She lived in an amazing loft and had fabulous taste in music, movies, and food. The writing she shared in our weekly workshop was always easily identifiable as hers, her prose balancing on a knife’s edge between the familiar and the uncanny, her characters compelling and complex. I might have been terrified of Brooke, except that she was also unfailingly warm and supportive. We were all searching for a way into the literary world, and Brooke had a knack for making me feel that I had as much a right to be there as anyone else.

Of all the writing shared by my fellow classmates, the piece that stuck with me more than any other was Brooke’s thesis manuscript, a novel featuring the beautiful and unsettling relationship between a young girl named Jane who’d just lost her father, and an outcast named Earnest Leopold, a complex figure that moved through the story with a sort of loping, broken grace. When I was given the chance to read an advanced copy of her debut novel, Burr, I was thrilled to discover that it was a version of this earlier story I had loved so much, now richer and more more electric than ever.

Burr falls squarely in the tradition of The Southern Ontario Gothic, mining the unsettling territory where our wilder, more honest selves rub up against the veneer of suburban respectability that blankets us. It reminds me of the novels I read as a teenager just beginning to discover what literature could do, books by Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro that offered me the radical notion that the boring, bright suburban world I inhabited was as full of ghosts and desire and grief and decay as any other time and place.

Though we haven’t gotten together for years and years, Brooke and I have stayed in touch. For a while, we sent each other recipes back and forth through the mail. Our lives have changed a lot— we’ve lived in different countries, gotten married, and given birth to two daughters a piece. Along the way, we’ve finally managed to carve for ourselves the literary lives we always dreamed of. I am so, so happy for Brooke, and for all of us who get to read her beautiful words.

I’m also excited to share that I will be moderating the Kitchener Waterloo double launch of Burr, and Catriona Wright’s new book of poetry, Continuity Errors. The hugely talented and delightful Vincent Anioke will also be reading. The event will take place on June 7th at 7 pm at Words Worth Books. It’s going to be such a blast!

Prince

When Prince scheduled a Toronto concert for his 2011 tour, I was unemployed and none of my friends wanted to go. I bought a ticket and headed downtown alone. I danced among strangers in my new raspberry beret, under the intoxicating spell of the Purple One’s funk. This hat reminds me that mildly irresponsible decisions often end up being the best ones, and to never say no to a dance with an idol.

2. Cat Housemates

The fact that I get to cohabitate with these two majestic creatures never ceases to amaze me. I love Johnny Guitar and Juniper’s rumbling purrs, the way they head butt me to say hello and knead my belly like bread. I don’t always know what they’re thinking, but I appreciate the mystery.

3. My Winnipeg and Lady Snowblood

I adore Guy Maddin’s eccentric films about sleepwalking Winnipeggers, vampiric ballet dancers, and a beer baroness’ quest to find the saddest music in the world. I’m also partial to female revenge films, like Toshiya Fujita’s magnificent 1973 Japanese masterpiece Lady Snowblood.

4. Novellas

Writer Yasuko Thanh once described novellas as the forgotten stepsister of literary fiction. In contemporary publishing, I’ve noticed they’re usually rebranded as “novels,” relying on creative formatting and extra blank pages to appear heftier. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I admire novellas’ taut ambition, slim spines, and succinct intensity. I even love the melodic three-syllable timbre of their name. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson’s perfect horror classic, is one of my favourites.

5. My Sweetly Gothic Children

Last May, I was lucky enough to attend Sage Hill’s ten-day writing retreat and fiction colloquium in a Saskatchewan Benedectine Abbey. Before I left, my five-year-old daughter presented me with an illustrated note she’d ghostwritten from my long-dead cat Cooper to keep me company. I felt so seen.

6. Swiss Army Knife

One Christmas when I was a teenager, my dad gave me and my sisters monogrammed Swiss Army knives. At the time, I was mostly into reading books, playing piano, and listening to Tori Amos on headphones when I wasn’t in school. I didn’t know what to do with the knife, so for years, it collected dust in my drawer. After my father suddenly passed away in 2005, this Swiss Army knife become one of my most cherished possessions. I appreciate its survival symbolism and the way it fits into my palm. Now that I camp with my family, it’s practical too, although I must admit the corkscrew gets the most use.

7. Amateur Wrestling Charm

My dad was an amateur wrestler who once competed in the World Championships. He bought a charm of two grapplers as a souvenir and wore it daily around his neck. After he died, my mom had ones made for my sisters and me. This charm reminds me of watching bouts at the University of Western Ontario with him, the grunts and squeaky mats, the circling and the takedowns. It reminds me to trust in my strength and to conduct my life with courage.